This invention relates to water-in-oil emulsifiers, and more particularly, to a water-in-oil emulsifier particularly suitable for use with fuel oil and for emulsifying water into the fuel oil to form a combustible new mixture.
In the past, efforts have been made to mix water into fuel oil to provide a combustible mixture which is fed, for example to an oil burner of a boiler. The prior devices are either too complicated, too expensive or do not provide suitable combustible mixtures in a reliable manner.
The main object of the present invention is to provide a water-into oil emulsifier which has no moving parts, is simple and inexpensive to manufacture and maintain, and which yet provides excellent emulsification characteristics.
A further object of the invention is to provide an emulsifier which provides smaller, and especially more uniform, water droplet sizes, so that when the water-oil emulsion is atomized into small globules-in-air, these globules will more uniformly explode when heated. One advantage of providing small, uniform water droplets to each oil globule is that a secondary atomization in combustion will result, which can be responsible in part for a large reduction in soot production by the oil burner arrangement, Greatly reduced sooting rate greatly reduces mean fire-to-water heat transfer losses, if the intervals between de-sooting shutdowns are kept constant. Such reduced losses result in savings of fuel, which not only help meet the nation's energy-saving goals, but also directly and visibly repay the heating-system owner with substantially reduced annual fuel costs. In most cases, longer intervals between de-sooting are also possible, while still keeping the mean soot-caused heat transfer losses negligible. This may be an important factor in operations where a two-day shutdown is necessary for de-sooting, especially if this interferes with production. Also, since soot production is reduced, it may be possible to use a cheaper grade oil and still maintain environmental standards for particulate emissions from furnace combustion.
Uniformity of water droplet diameters makes it feasible to have three or more water droplets inside the smallest oil globules (to provide the explosive secondary atomization to every such globule) while minimizing excess water--which is useless--and unnecessarily reduces the temperature of the fire.